Collins’s work captures a **Sofia Coppola–**esque utopia of coming-of-age nostalgia: A world glazed over by adolescent adventures that revolve in retro driveways, faded Levi’s 501s, belly-baring crop tops, braless escapades, and forever young car rides, all filtered through bubblegum hues and tints. But filters aside, there’s an aspirational realness to Collins’s work, a feeling that this was the adolescence that you should have had—the women (and their experiences) being photographed are not professional models, but friends, untouched and unaltered by technology. (And it’s worth noting that it’s this same grainy “realness” that once resulted in the temporary deactivation of Collins’s Instagram account after she posted an image of her visibly ungroomed nether regions in a white bikini brief.) “I try to only use my peers or friends of friends as models so that there’s an intimate relationship between us,” says Collins from her New York apartment, bedridden due to a recently dislocated knee. “I hate using the word ‘realness’ but there is a substance to images [that use real people] and hopefully people can relate to them more than just using fashion models.”

And it seems that they do: Collins’s photography has become a plexus of discussion about sexuality, youth, and gender, morphing her into a niche millennial Internet celebrity, the kind obsessed over and dissected on blogs and sites across the Internet, and revered by thousands of young women. “We don’t necessarily have supermodel bodies or skin or meet certain beauty standards that we feel the pressure to,” says Menuez about the kinship felt when working with Collins. “Being with friends makes it easier to throw it all to the wind, like playing dress-up and making funny photos.” And you can’t get more real than that.